Sunday Morning Male Beauty

 

The Right's Latest Bogeyman: “Woke Capitalism”

For the every more extreme and non-mainstream Republican Party and its Christofascist/white supremacist base, everything falls into the scope of their unceasing culture.   Now, socially conscious and not discriminatory businesses are finding themselves in the crosshairs of faux conservatives, "Christian" religious zealots and climate change deniers for being responsible corporate citizens.  Seemingly, the only kind of capitalism the far right and GOP likes is vulture capitalism at its most cruel where making money is the only goal and the destruction of the environment and humane treatment done to others is something that cannot be considered.  The attacks on Disney in Florida is but one example of the right's assault on businesses that question or counter the far rights knuckle dragging and bigoted beliefs.  Sadly, like everything else on the political right, the attack on responsible corporations is all about ginning up outrage among the party base and fanning hatred.  The moral sickness of the political right is chilling and there are no signs that a semblance of sanity will be regained any time soon.  A piece in the New York Times looks at the manufactured culture war.  Here are highlights:

It’s been a widely accepted trend in financial circles for nearly two decades. But suddenly, Republicans have launched an assault on a philosophy that says that companies should be concerned with not just profits but also how their businesses affect the environment and society.

More than $18 trillion is held in investment funds that follow the investing principle known as E.S.G. — shorthand for prioritizing environmental, social and governance factors — a strategy that has been adopted by major corporations around the globe.

Now, Republicans around the country say Wall Street has taken a sharp left turn, attacking what they term “woke capitalism” and dragging businesses, their onetime allies, into the culture wars.

The rancor escalated this week as Congress entered the fray. Republicans used their new majority in the House on Tuesday to vote, 216 to 204, to overturn a Department of Labor rule that allows retirement funds to consider climate change and other factors when choosing companies in which to invest. The Senate followed on Wednesday, as two Democrats, Senators Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Jon Tester of Montana, joined Republicans in a 50-to-46 vote to send the resolution to President Biden’s desk.

The White House has said Mr. Biden will block the resolution, in what could be the first veto of his presidency.

E.S.G. investing has been routine on Wall Street for years. Most major companies issue extensive reports about their efforts to combat climate change and commitment to workplace diversity.

But in recent months, conservatives have increasingly attacked the practice, arguing that it promotes liberal priorities ranging from renewable energy to the Black Lives Matter movement.

And while E.S.G. applies to everything from diversity among corporate leaders to corruption controls, it’s the “E” in E.S.G. — the idea that the private sector needs to consider its impact on the environment — that has emerged as the top target of Republicans.

Officials in Republican-led states argue that it would lead to disinvestment in fossil fuel companies that provide tax revenue and jobs in their states, making it a top target of right-wing commentators and politicians. . . . . “It’s become a liberal versus conservative, Democrat versus Republican issue.”

The Labor Department rule is likely to remain on the books, as Republicans do not appear to have the votes to overturn a promised veto.  But the House vote on Tuesday was just the start of what’s expected to be a lengthy campaign against E.S.G.

Already this month, Representative Patrick McHenry, the North Carolina Republican who leads the House Financial Services Committee, announced the formation of a “Republican E.S.G. Working Group.” Republicans plan hearings this year at which conservative lawmakers are likely to grill executives from some of the nation’s biggest banks on their views about climate change, social issues and more.

As the Securities and Exchange Commission considers a new rule that would require corporations to disclose their carbon emissions, industry groups and Republican lawmakers have been pushing to limit its scope.

Around the country, Republican state treasurers have been withdrawing billions of dollars from firms like BlackRock that they deem “woke.” . . . .To the ranks of wonky risk management professionals who have toiled over the minutia of E.S.G. reports for decades now, the political fracas is perplexing.

As more companies began talking about their efforts to combat climate change and improve diversity, the issue was pushed to the forefront of the corporate agenda. Among the loudest proponents of E.S.G. has been Larry Fink, the chief executive of BlackRock, who has called on companies to reach beyond profit statements to consider the role the private sector could play in addressing societal problems.

That advocacy has made him a target of scathing critiques from conservative commentators and politicians, as well as dark conspiracy theories. . . . “They’re trying to demonize the issues.”

The current E.S.G. backlash can be traced to Texas, where in 2020 oil executives began complaining that big banks like JPMorgan had stopped lending them money. . . . Republican legislators in Austin, as well as officials at the Texas Railroad Commission, the state’s energy regulator, took up their cause.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, said he believed the Republican position on E.S.G. was more about ginning up outrage than about just how much of a financial risk climate change posed to long term investments.

“They invent culture-war provocations that drive clicks, and woke capitalism is part of that,” he said.

Mr. Whitehouse added that he believed the fossil fuel industry was responsible for funding much of the pushback. Groups like the Texas Public Policy Foundation, which has been opposing climate action around the country, are supported by oil and gas companies.

Financial institutions caught in the middle of the fight say it makes their work difficult. “It is having an impact,” said Ivan Frishberg, chief sustainability officer of Amalgamated Bank. “It’s a chilling one. It’s a complicated one. And none of that is good for business.”

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DeSantis Appoints Nutcase to Disney Oversight Board

As Florida lurches ever closer to being a fully fascist state with Ron DeSantis following Adolph Hitler's play book of attacking the free press, punishing businesses that question his policies, targeting minority groups - namely blacks and LGBT individuals - and seeking to silence bloggers and others critical of his abhorent policies, DeSantis is also appointing nutcases to positions of power provided they are loyal to him.  A case in point is DeSantis' appointment of Ron Peri (pictured at right) to the oversight board for Disney's special tax district.  Peri is in  my view a total whack job who strikes one as just as crazy and dangerous in his own way as Heinrich Himmler, Hitler's Reichsführer of the Schutzstaffel (Protection Squadron; SS), and and a main architect of the Holocaust.  While Himmler was obsessed with hunting down and extermination Europe's Jewish population, Peri is obsessed with homosexuality and has a history of bizarre and vile statements against gays.  His obsession makes me wonder if the man "doth not protest too much" like so many "pastors" and far right Republicans who have been caught up in gay sex scandals (locally, think of former congressman Ed Shrock who had one of the most anti-gay voting records yet sough gay trysts on the down low).  A piece at CNN looks at Peri's appointment and others lacking any legitimate credentials which underscores that DeSantis wants to empower extremists as he seeks to win over the most insane elements of the Republican Party base.  Here are article highlights:

An appointee to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ new oversight board in control of Disney’s special tax district called homosexuality “evil” last year and shared a baseless conspiracy theory that tap water could be making more people gay.

On Monday, the Republican governor appointed Ron Peri, an Orlando-based former pastor and the CEO of The Gathering – a Christian ministry focused on outreach to men – as one of five people who will now oversee the Reedy Creek Improvement District, the government body that has given Disney unique powers in Central Florida for more than half a century.

DeSantis signed a bill in February that allowed him to replace the district’s existing board – mostly people with ties to Disney – with a five-member body that he hand-picked. The move to remove power from Disney comes nearly a year after the company spoke out against a Florida bill – which DeSantis later signed into law – to restrict certain classroom instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity.

A CNN KFile review of Peri’s past comments found that he frequently made derogatory remarks about the LGBTQ community.

“So why are there homosexuals today? There are any number of reasons, you know, that are given. Some would say the increase in estrogen in our societies. You know, there’s estrogen in the water from birth control pills. They can’t get it out,” Peri baselessly said in a January 2022 Zoom discussion, later put on YouTube. “The level of testosterone in men broadly in America has declined by 50 points in the past 10 years. You know, and so, maybe that’s a part of it.”

“But the big part I would suggest to you, based upon what it’s saying here, is the removal of constraint,” he continued. “So our society provided the constraint. And so, which is the responsibility of a society to constrain people from doing evil? Well, you remove the constraints, and then evil occurs.”

Testosterone levels in men have dropped in recent decades, and researchers are unsure why, but the drop is not 50%, and there is no indication that a drop in testosterone affects sexual orientation. Likewise, there is no evidence that estrogen in the water supply, for which birth control pills account for a statistically insignificant amount, affects sexual orientation. The claim that chemicals in tap water could turn people gay has gained ground with conspiracy theorists over the years, most memorably with fringe commentator Alex Jones . . . .

Peri called homosexuality “shameful,” linking it to disease. . . . Peri has also said that LGBTQ people “don’t have a stake in the future” because many do not have children, and he called gay people “deviant.”  In one discussion, he linked homosexuality to the fall of the Roman Empire – a fringe historical belief occasionally pushed by some Christian activists. . . . . Peri and DeSantis did not respond to CNN’s requests for comment.

Peri’s appointment to the oversight board comes after a long-standing battle between DeSantis and Disney over the Parental Rights in Education Act – which critics have called Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law. The law bars schools from teaching about sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third-grade classrooms and in older classrooms that do not meet yet-to-be-defined standards.

After Disney’s then-chairman spoke out against the bill last year, DeSantis stripped the company of its unique governing power within the Reedy Creek Improvement Distric

The new law ousted the existing board, renamed it the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District and allowed DeSantis to appoint all five members – one of whom was Peri.

This week, DeSantis told supporters that Disney’s opposition to the Parental Rights in Education Act was a “only a mild annoyance” and that the motivation for effectively punishing the company was in response to it allegedly injecting “a lot of this sexuality into the programming for young kids.” He has suggested that the new board could influence Disney’s business decisions by adding park discounts for Florida residents and even altering the company’s entertainment offerings.

In addition to Peri, DeSantis also appointed to the board Martin Garcia, a Tampa lawyer whose private investment firm contributed $50,000 to the governor’s 2022 reelection campaign, and Bridget Ziegler, a co-founder of the conservative organization Moms for Liberty and the wife of Christian Ziegler, the new chairman of the Republican Party of Florida.

 DeSantis and his minions are a clear and present danger to freedom and democracy. 

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CPAC: A Circus With Trump as Ringmaster

The Conservative Political Action Conference ("CPAC") in my view has long been a place where the craziest elements of the political right have gathered and espoused conspiracy theories and spouted every sort of batshit craziness imaginable.  But with the rise of MAGA world and the Trump base, what was once a gathering of mental health clinic patients is now a full blown insane asylum.  Indeed, CPAC attendees have gotten so untethered to objective reality that numerous Republican office holders are avoiding the coven of crazies completely.  As icing on the cake for this year's CPAC gathering, sexual misconduct allegations are pending against Matt Schlapp, who runs CPAC, and who is accused of groping a male campaign aide for Herschel Walker, the failed GOP senatorial candidate in Georgia annointed by Donald Trump. Nothing could be better for traditional conservativism than the demise of CPAC (and the end of Fox News).  Sadly, this is unlikely to happen even as this years gathering devolves into a three ring circus with Det Trimpenfuhrer as ringmaster.   A column in the Washington Post looks at the dangerous lunacy.  Here are excerpts: 

The Conservative Political Action Conference once was a don’t-miss annual gathering of Republican leadership and anyone who aspired to it. That doesn’t describe the Trumpified four-day CPAC that started Wednesday at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in National Harbor, Md.

Absent will be such GOP stars as former vice president Mike Pence, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin. All three say they’re busy or otherwise booked; DeSantis is attending the Club for Growth’s annual conference in Palm Beach, Fla.

A bunch of other high-profile Republicans also won’t be attending CPAC this year: Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy of California, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

For what it’s worth, these GOP leaders have not publicly said they’re no-shows because of sexual misconduct allegations against Matt Schlapp, who runs CPAC. But the allegations — denied by Schlapp, that last fall he groped a male campaign aide for Herschel Walker, the GOP Senate candidate in Georgia — certainly don’t make appearing at CPAC look more appealing.

However, CPAC will feature former president Donald Trump, former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, and My Pillow king and conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell. There is no more vivid indicator of CPAC’s trajectory across the years than the fact that the conference’s annual Ronald Reagan Dinner address will be delivered by Arizona gubernatorial sore loser Kari Lake.

At a time when many Republicans are ready to move on from lunatic arguments about 2020 presidential election theft, CPAC organizers are doubling down, shining an even brighter spotlight on conspiracy-minded election losers and their acolytes.

Year by year, CPAC has become less and less of a wonky conservative movement networking event and more and more of a circus. The guest list features fewer and fewer policy experts debating the correct path for conservatives . . . . The tone is now indistinguishable from one of Trump’s campaign rallies.

And no one should be all that surprised; Matt Schlapp’s wife, Mercedes, served as White House strategic communications director under Trump, and both Schlapps are widely perceived as Trump loyalists. The image of CPAC is now indistinguishable from Trump’s.

If CPAC’s main goal is to fill seats, it appears to be working well enough. Like all conferences, CPAC runs on paid attendance and sponsorships, and you can’t begrudge organizers for wanting a lineup of speakers who will draw a crowd and fire ’em up.

But there’s an inevitable trade-off when the conference chooses Trumpification, prominently featuring figures such as Lindell and Lake. They become the face of the event. Suddenly, the streaming service Fox Nation isn’t so interested in being a sponsor anymore.

The cost-benefit analysis for an aspiring president such as Pence or DeSantis changes when the Venn diagram of CPAC’s brand and Trump’s brand becomes almost a perfect circle. If you’re trying to beat Trump, does it make sense to go to a de facto four-day Trump rally on the Potomac?

Granted, CPAC attracts a big crowd of the most die-hard conservative grass-roots activists, but a Republican presidential candidate can reach that demographic in plenty of other ways — interviews on Fox News, talk radio, podcasts or other conservative outlets. Nikki Haley, a declared Republican presidential candidate, who served as Trump’s United Nations ambassador, is attending CPAC, in a daring move, given that she’s challenging the star of the show.

CPAC chose the path of being identified as a Trumpy affair. Organizers shouldn’t be surprised when candidates not named Trump aren’t so enthusiastic about showing up. Much like the fictional “Spinal Tap,” CPAC would likely insist it isn’t losing popularity, it’s just that the gathering’s “appeal is becoming more selective.”

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GOP Bills Seek to Restrict All Transgender Health Care

Republicans at the demand of their party's Christofascist base are launching an expanding war against transgender individuals.  No longer are minors alleged to being "protected" but some bills and their advocates want to basically outlaw all transgender care.  Never mind that the medical science acknowledges the cause of gender dysphoria and affirms the need for and value of transgender health care.  No, instead, anything that conflicts with Christofascists' house of cards/fairy tale beliefs must be stamped out regardless of the harm done to others.  As noted on this blog many times, there is no one more selfish and self-centered that evangelicals and Christofascists who have made Christianity a fear and hate-based contagion on humankind.  Sadly, Republican legislators eager to please one of the vilest parts of the party base are falling all over themselves to come up with ever harsher attacks on transgender Americans and  - for now and least - other LGBT citizens. Growing up gay in the era that I did was very hard and involved suicide attempts (being gay was deemed a mental illness until I was in my last year of college), yet it is nothing compared to being transgender in a once again increasingly hostile society.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at the GOP war on transgender citizens which can only bring otherwise avoidable suicides and misery.  Some will ignore these developments believing that they are not impacted, but contraception and other personal rights are also in the crosshairs of "Christian" extremists and their political whores in the GOP.  Here are article highlights: 

Republican state Sen. Jack Johnson stood on the Tennessee Senate floor last month to open the discussion on a bill he is co-sponsoring. The measure would limit gender-affirming care such as puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgeries for minors.

But Johnson is also backing another bill, HB1215, that would effectively cut off access to gender-affirming care for low-income people, including adults. The measure prohibits Tennessee’s Medicaid program from working with health insurance companies that cover gender-affirming care.

As of late February, Republican lawmakers in at least five states have introduced legislation that would limit such care for adults. Until this year, most proposed restrictions on transition-related care targeted people under 18. Some of the new measures prohibit it for individuals up to age 21, while others block Medicaid from covering for it for all ages.

“It’s interesting that initially we heard that this was a thing to protect youth, but now we are seeing that it’s really about all transgender people,” Rep. Gloria Johnson (D-Knoxville) said while HB1215 was being discussed on Feb. 21 in the Tennessee House.

“Last year, the rhetoric was to protect kids, but now they are going after adults,” said Allison Chapman, a legislative researcher and transgender rights advocate based in Virginia.

In Oklahoma, House Republicans also approved a bill Tuesday that would prohibit any facility that receives public funds from offering gender-affirming care for minors or adults, as well as blocking insurance coverage for it. Another bill would make it a felony for a physician to provide transition-related hormone treatments or surgeries to anyone under the age of 26. In Kansas and Mississippi, legislators wanted to ban gender-affirming care for people up to age 21. In South Carolina, a measure would block the state’s Medicaid program from covering any transition-related medications or procedures.

Tennessee Rep. Tim Rudd (R-Murfreesboro), who supports HB1215, said on Feb. 21 that the bill was not making transgender health care illegal because people could still obtain it privately. Instead, it was “simply taking away a service” that does not align with the “values of most Tennesseans.”

Angel Luci Pellegrino, a 38-year-old transgender man based in Chattanooga, Tenn., said the measure, if passed, would probably end his access to gender-affirming care. “My doctor informed me that if this bill passes, insurance will no longer cover my medicines, my doctor’s appointments and my laboratory tests,” he said, adding that he is on disability and “can’t afford private health care.”

Transgender advocates said the push to extend restrictions to those over 18 should not come as a surprise. They view bans on gender-affirming care for minors as part of a broader attack on transgender rights.

Terry Schilling, president of the conservative American Principles Project, said his organization wants gender-transition procedures for minors and adults to be unthinkable in the future.

Focusing on protecting children first was obvious, according to Schilling, because “they are so vulnerable.” But when it comes to adults, he said, he doesn’t want to ban gender transition care but rather use the threat of malpractice suits to discourage health-care providers from offering it.

The American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, the Endocrine Society and other major medical organizations oppose restrictions on gender-affirming care. The American Academy of Pediatrics released a statement in August that called such care “medically necessary and appropriate” for some minors and criticized the “rampant disinformation” spread by those seeking restrictions.

Supporters of bans on gender-affirming care for youths have argued that minors are not capable of making decisions about gender transition, even though those decisions are made with parents and health-care providers. . . . “It’s a very big, big decision, so people are realizing that you should be older when you make it,” Olsen said. The legislator also wrote a bill to lower the minimum age to carry a firearm from 21 to 18.

So far, Republican legislators in four states have passed bans on gender-affirming care for minors: Utah and Mississippi this year and Arkansas and Alabama last year. . . . The laws in Arkansas and Alabama are tied up in court. In Florida, the state Board of Medicine has approved a ban on gender-affirming care for minors, and the state no longer allows Medicaid to cover it for anyone, regardless of age.

The Endocrine Society has called the Florida ban on gender-affirming care for minors “blatantly discriminatory” and said it “contradicts medical evidence.” Major medical groups have also filed an amicus brief in support of Medicaid recipients in Florida who are challenging the state’s ban on Medicaid coverage for gender-affirming care in court. Despite the lawsuit, a judge has allowed the policy to take effect.

In Tennessee, Pellegrino is watching what is happening at the state Capitol with growing apprehension. A suicide survivor, he said he can’t imagine how it will feel if the state “forces him out of transitioning.”

With his limited resources, he said, he can’t afford to leave Tennessee. So he is searching for a legal recourse to access gender-affirming care in case the bill becomes law. “Transitioning was not a cosmetic procedure for me; it was lifesaving treatment,” he said. “I am in a really dark place with this news right now.”

Be very afraid.  Transgender individuals are the immediate targets, but gays and racial and religious minorities will be next as will the right of married heterosexual couples to use contraception.